Students vs. The Machine: Lessons Learned in the Student Community following the Christchurch Earthquakes
By Sam Johnson
When massive earthquakes hit Christchurch, New Zealand in February 2011, university students wanted to help in the clean-up. But established first response agencies were wary of these young volunteers and too harried to work with them, so they turned them away. Sam Johnson, a student leader, would not take no for an answer. He turned to Facebook and put out a call to his friends. Within hours he had recruited both a team of workers and enough loaned equipment to go out and simply start “mucking out.” Over the next several days, his social network spread the word and hundreds, then thousands of students stepped forward.
They called themselves the Student Volunteer Army (SVA) and eventually fielded 9,000 volunteers, earning the respect and support of the local authorities along the way. SVA continues its work today, as the Christchurch area experiences aftershocks and further quakes even now. Because of the media attention SVA received, they were invited to Japan after the tsunami to work with a like-minded team of students and Johnson recently returned from presenting on the role of Youth in Disaster at the World Summit for Youth Volunteering in Colombia, South America.
In this article, Johnson shares his experience of being at the centre of the growing emergency response momentum and how he had to learn “volunteer management” instantly. He describes how he used the tools of social media and how others can connect to young people through online networks. He explains his strong vision for “the positive change that can occur if technology at our fingertips is harnessed by Gen-Y to build stronger community relationships.”
